{"id":1263865,"date":"2022-12-10T17:24:48","date_gmt":"2022-12-10T17:24:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/12\/10\/world-cup-morocco-stun-portugal-to-reach-historic-semi-final\/"},"modified":"2022-12-10T17:24:48","modified_gmt":"2022-12-10T17:24:48","slug":"world-cup-morocco-stun-portugal-to-reach-historic-semi-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/12\/10\/world-cup-morocco-stun-portugal-to-reach-historic-semi-final\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup: Morocco stun Portugal to reach historic semi-final"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\">\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/127964673_youssefen-nesriputsmoroccoahead-696x392.jpg\"   alt=\"\" title=\"_127964673_youssefen-nesriputsmoroccoahead\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Youssef En-Nesyri scored his third World Cup goal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Morocco became the first African nation to reach a World Cup semi-final and ended the hopes of Cristiano Ronaldo\u2019s Portugal.<\/p>\n<p>Striker Youssef En-Nesyri scored the winning goal in the first half, leaping highest to beat goalkeeper Diogo Costa to the ball and heading in to spark pandemonium at Al Thumama Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>The north African side\u2019s supporters populated most of the venue and joyously celebrated their breakthrough moment for their continent on the global stage.<\/p>\n<p>Ronaldo came off the bench in the 50th minute to equal the men\u2019s all-time appearance record of 196 in international matches, but he could not drag his side back into the contest.<\/p>\n<p>Morocco were happy to play on the counter and grabbed the opener just before the break when En-Nesyri headed in from Yahya Attiyat-Allah\u2019s cross.<\/p>\n<p>Portugal skipper Bruno Fernandes came agonisingly close to levelling just minutes later but a brilliant individual effort struck the crossbar.<\/p>\n<p>Decimated by injuries, Morocco sat back for the majority of the second half and Yassine Bounou brilliantly tipped over Joao Felix\u2019s drive \u2013 the closest they came to an equaliser.<\/p>\n<p>Morocco striker Walid Cheddira was sent off for a second yellow card in eight minutes of additional time but Portugal could not find the equaliser as their last-four hopes were dashed.<\/p>\n<p>            <!--  [embed]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=videoseries[\/embed]<!--\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>--><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"g5aOcern770\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Debt Restructuring: Ghana insurers Association seeks exemption from programme (9-12-22)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/g5aOcern770?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Youssef En-Nesyri scored his third World Cup goal Morocco became the first African nation to reach a World Cup semi-final and ended the hopes of Cristiano Ronaldo\u2019s Portugal. Striker Youssef En-Nesyri scored the winning goal in the first half, leaping highest to beat goalkeeper Diogo Costa to the ball and heading in to spark pandemonium [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1263866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[262,2594,1010,6993,3068,4029,1188,784],"class_list":["post-1263865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-cup","tag-historic","tag-morocco","tag-portugal","tag-reach","tag-semifinal","tag-stun","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1263865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1263865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1263865\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1263865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1263865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1263865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}